The Case of Diane Holik. True Crime Documentary

in this video we'll explore the events that occurred in Austin Texas 43-year-old Diane holik was a successful woman who held a senior position at IBM on the morning of November 16th 2001 she missed a scheduled work call which immediately caused concern for her colleagues because everyone knew her as a responsible person hence when colleagues could not reach her they contacted the police and asked to check Diane's house arriving there the officers made a terrible [Music] Discovery Diane Tammy holic was born in 1958 in New York City friends and family described her as a workaholic and a joyful person her determination and work performance made her a financially secure person for more than 20 years she has worked at IBM one of the world's largest manufacturers and suppliers of hardware and software in 1996 she moved to Austin Texas by this time she held a senior position in the company which allowed her to work from her home office Diane bought a luxury house in the suburbs of Austin and lived a life that many can only dream of she organized wine tasting parties for friends visited the most expensive restaurants and dance clubs and was engaged in charity work at the same time she tried to improve her personal life in mid November of 2001 A storm warning was in effect in Texas torrential rains and tornadoes hit Austin so Diane worked from her home on the morning of November 16th her company scheduled a work call but she stopped answering her phone Diane had several phones including her home phone however she didn't answer any of them her colleagues left messages asking her to call back somehow they quickly realized something was wrong hence they contacted the police department and asked them to send someone to Diane's house to check if anything had happened when the officers arrived at the house Diane's neighbor noticed them and said she had a spare key the police went inside where there was complete silence broken only by Dogs coming out of the kitchen having received no response from Dian they began to inspect the house in the bedroom on the second floor they found the lifeless body of Diane holik detectives went to her house Diane's home became one of the cleanest crime scenes they had to deal with there were no signs of theft struggle or illegal entry into the house Diane's body fully dressed was lying in the bedroom next to her bed and yet the detectives quickly realized they were dealing with a crime there were distinct strangulation marks on the woman's neck left by something like a rope also there were traces of some someone binding her wrists with presumably cable ties the cleanliness in the house untouched valuables and the absence of signs of forced entry LED detectives to believe that Diane died at the hands of a person she knew they thought it was someone she trusted enough to let into the house there were no signs of someone forcing her into intimacy before death however the detectives found several dark spots and red stains on the carpet before the bedroom entrance the only thing that caught the detective's eyes was a towel lying on the back of the sofa in the living room because it did not fit into the overall picture of cleanliness and Order therefore they sent it to the laboratory for examination the police interviewed the people who knew Diane and learned she had no enemies or perhaps no one knew about them they also discovered she was in a relationship with Dennis Conley the latter was the man with whom Diane wanted to spend her future future life she was already married before but that marriage quickly ended Diane and Dennis met through a dating service he had two children from a previous marriage and was a businessman Dennis lived in Houston about 150 mi from Austin where Diane lived despite the distance and infrequent meetings they quickly became close after two months of communication Dennis proposed to Diane giving her a platinum ring worth $17,500 the woman said yes Diane's close friends told investigators her relationship with Dennis began to deteriorate recently she was an independent woman who devoted her life to building a career while Dennis sometimes tried to control her another thing that bothered Diane was the decision to move to Houston she and Dennis decided to start a life together on his territory so Diane put her house in the suburbs of Austin up for sale however Realtors could not find find anyone willing to pay $435,000 for the property detectives started wondering if Dennis was involved in Diane's death they asked him to come to the police station and he agreed to a Frank conversation without a lawyer the medical examiner concluded that Diane died between 3:00 p.m. on November 15th and 3:00 a.m. on November 16th however there was another interesting detail the wedding ring Dennis gave her was not on her finger but her other jewelry remained untouched in the bedroom perhaps the perpetrator had personal reasons or maybe the criminal removed the ring from the victim's hand to confuse investigators during the interview Dennis gave the impression of a grief stricken man they asked him about his relationship with Diane and his whereabouts on the day of his fiance's death and the day they found her body he said he was in Houston at the time on Thursday morning November 15th he and Diane talked on the phone he spent the whole day at work and did not contact her again the next morning Dennis was unable to reach Diane hence he left a message on her voicemail as we now know the woman was already dead by this time he admitted that their relationship was far from ideal mentioning they had arguments lately before ending the conversation the police took his fingerprints and a DNA sample theoretically he could come to Austin deal with Diane and return to Houston by morning however the detectives checked his Alibi the man didn't leave the city hence the police had to look for a new suspect and Dennis was the one who changed the course of the investigation before leaving the police station he said that one of Diane's colleagues paid too much attention to her as detectives established Ry the man Dennis mentioned periodically visited Diane's house and sometimes even walked her dogs but Ry also had a solid Alibi and was not consider considered a suspect however when talking with Diane's colleagues the authorities learned that some man inspected her house a few days before her death he sold the ranch and planned to buy her home if he liked it after inspection he said he would make a cash offer this man inspected the house and said he would return with his wife in a few days to make a joint decision on the purchase since this information was one of the few Clues the police had they directed all their efforts to find this mysterious buyer perhaps someone saw him when he came to see Diane's house detectives started interviewing the owners of all the properties for sale in the area where Diane lived suggesting that the victim's house wasn't the only one this mysterious buyer came to see of all the people interviewed seven women told the same story according to them on the day of Diane's death a 35 45-year-old man with a big nose and dark hair combed back came to see their houses without the presence of a real estate agent while Six Women didn't let the man in one still allowed him to go inside and see the house as this woman said the potential buyer behaved strangely after going inside he didn't open any doors or look at the arrangement of the rooms he was only interested in the bedroom on the second floor asking the woman to show it to him the woman felt something was wrong and asked him to leave her home the important thing here is that this man introduced himself self as Walter Miller when asking for permission to inspect the house the police searched for this name in their databases while a forensic artist sketched this man there were two Walter Millers in Austin none of which fit either age or appearance description detectives were trying to understand the motive of the crime did the criminal only take the wedding ring could he have taken other jewelry or money after all the victim was wealthy and lived alone for a long time hence no one could tell how much jewelry she actually had why did he take off the cable Ties That bound Diane's hands and take them with him did he know her when the police found Diane's body she was fully clothed and the autopsy found no evidence of someone forcing her into intimacy before her death yet the detectives decided to return to her home and look for traces of seen assuming the criminal could have left the fluid somewhere in the house but they didn't find anything there the sketch of a possible criminal started appearing on the evening newscasts that asked anyone who knew a similar person to report it one of the few Clues available to the police was a few short hairs found on a towel from Diane's house unfortunately this hair was without roots which prevented the experts from getting a complete DNA sample of their owner nevertheless the investigators had high hopes for the results of the partial Prof profile meanwhile a woman called the police after seeing a sketch of a man reasonably considered a suspect in the Diane holic case during the interview with detectives the caller said she and her husband put their house up for sale about 6 months ago one afternoon a man came and said he wanted to buy a house for cash however he needed to see it first as in the previous stories a real estate agent wasn't there this woman did not let the stranger into her home home so he had to leave after about 2 months she saw the same man on the doorstep the latter introduced himself as Jim Taylor her husband had just left for work and she was at home with her little daughter the man again asked to look around inside but was refused it angered him he started shouting and insisting on going inside the pseudo buyer only left when the woman said she would call the police the woman was terrified she took a piece of paper and wrote down down his name and the license plate number of his minivan parked in the driveway when she saw the suspect's portrait on the news she felt he was the one who came to look at her house back then thus the police now had the license plate number at their disposal using the database they learned that the vehicle's owner was not Jim Taylor but Patrick Anthony Russo at first glance it seemed unlikely that Russo was involved in Diane's death he lived 40 minutes from Austin was married raised two children and played in a church music band but a more detailed analysis of his past showed the man was an ex-convict who served time for a series of attacks on women one of them ended with abduction he tied up his victim with cable ties and started strangling but stopped at the last moment the court sentenced him to 20 years in prison for this crime while behind bars he met his future wife Janet a church volunteer despite his criminal Rec record Russo was released from prison on parole having served 8 years out of 20 the police didn't believe it was a coincidence so they went to Anthony Russo's house after receiving a search warrant giving the impression of a man who was not at all surprised by the visit of the police Anthony opened the door but the police found no evidence in his house Diane's ring or any of her other belongings weren't there a search of his minivan didn't bring any results either but what was important is that the neighbors saw a similar car at Diane's house on the day of her death in the utility room they found several cable ties identical to those that left marks on Diane's wrists however even if we consider it as evidence it's still an indirect one after all anyone can buy these ties at any hardware store the investigator informed Anthony that his name had come up during the investigation of one of the cases and asked him to go to the station for a more detailed conversation there they asked Russo about his whereabouts on November 15th and 16 he said that on Thursday the 15th he went to Austin to a religious radio station but could not get there because no one opened the door for him it just so happened that this radio station was not far from Diane holl's house according to him he went home at about 400 p.m. but got a little lost due to a hurricane hence he arrived home around 600 p.m. I want to remind you that according to the report of the forensic Medical expert Diane died between 300 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. when the police asked Russo if he was looking for a house to buy he replied he had never looked at any properties for sale it is a crucial moment because his statement will have consequences when they showed him a picture of Diane he did not react in any way and said he never met her there was no evidence to link him to the crime so the police had to let him go but the next day when the detectives visited the radio station that Russo was talking talking about it became clear that his words about the closed doors were lies the employees said they didn't close the doors because many people gathered in the lobby due to the approaching tornado meanwhile another woman contacted the police she was also selling a house and came across a man who looked similar to the suspect's sketch the young mother was at home with her child when someone knocked on her door when she opened it she saw a man holding a pamphlet The pamphlet contained house selling ads including her own The Stranger said he wanted to buy a house and asked permission to go inside and look around mentioning he would make a cash offer this woman let him in however he tried to attack her when she showed him one of the bedrooms but then he heard a child crying in the Next Room and quickly left the woman kept the pamphlet that this man was holding in his hands when the police received it they found a well-preserved fingerprint on it those fingerprints belonged to Anthony Russo but he claimed he had never looked at the houses for sale the New Evidence meant he gave a false statement he was still on probation and having lied to the police he committed a misdemeanor Russo's failure to fulfill the parole conditions was the reason for his arrest the authorities were afraid he would run away while they were looking for evidence that could link him to Diane's death they thought it would be safer to keep him behind bars the police managed to find 15 women to whom Russo came to see the houses all these women came to identify the suspect on the other side of the glass were five equally dressed and similar men one of whom was Anthony Russo all of those men repeated specific phrases in turn the following phrase you have a beautiful house you have a beautiful house 10 of the 15 women identified Anthony Russo as the person who came to them to see the house before buying the other five failed to identify anyone the police again interrogated Russo but now he knew they revealed his lies however it did not prevent him from declaring his innocence at some point he said he wanted to see his wife and stopped answering questions soon after the detectives received a report from the laboratory it confirmed that the mitochondrial sequence of the hair found on the towel from Diane's house matches Anthony Russo's DNA however it was only partial evidence leaving a slight chance that the hair could belong to someone else according to court documents the probability that someone else would have the same DNA profile as Russo was 1 in 12, 900,000 thus the investigation had a lot of indirect evidence but there was not a single direct clue linking Russo with the death of Diane holik another indirect proof was the report on the location of his cell phone that established Russo was in the same area where Diane lived on the day of her death after examining the computer seized from his house the experts found a very revealing search history Russo a 37-year-old man with two children and a regular visitor to the church was a frequent user of the adult website there he watched videos and read articles about strangulation during intimacy the materials on the website weren't free what is even more revealing is that a couple of days before Diane's death he read a story where a male character enters the house of a Lonely Woman under the guise of a buyer strangles her and takes valuables with him when he leaves so that everyone thinks that the motive was robbery and not a desire to quench his thirst for strangulation the detectives thoroughly studied the financial side of the life of Russo and his wife having around $2,000 in savings he could not afford to buy a new home in addition he and his wife have not yet paid the bank for the house in which they lived although they had no direct evidence the police charged Anthony Russo with taking the life of Diane holik on February 5th 2004 more than 2 years after Diane's death he appeared in court 14 women testified under oath stating Russo approached them about buying a house he visited some of them on the day of Diane's death but they wouldn't let him into their homes the exception was one woman who first let him in and then quickly told to leave because of his strange Behavior everyone Russo came to was about the same age it indicated that he was watching the owners before knocking on their doors he was interested in women of a specific type the prosecution presented all the evidence previously mentioned in the video and described the alleged events on that ill-fated November day as mentioned before Diane told one of her colleagues that a potential buyer had come to her to see the house prosecutors suggested that Russo realized Diane lived alone after the first time he saw the house on November 15th Russo toured the homes for sale but only one woman let him inside but then he came to Diane's house Russo probably asked Diane to show him the house again and yet he went there with a specific purpose and thought out all his actions trying not to leave any traces it was raining outside so Diane unexpectedly gave him a towel to wipe his hand hands and face he casually threw this towel on the back of the sofa she again showed him the house when they were on the second floor ruso attacked her prosecutors believed that Russo enjoyed the process of strangulation which led to Diane not surviving the second meeting with him before leaving Russo took cable ties and Diane's wedding ring which the police could not find he locked the door with a spare key stored at the front door it was the version of the prosecutor's office Russo's former and current wives also spoke at the trial they both said that Anthony enjoyed the strangulation process it is worth remembering that the Man's first conviction was for a similar crime after an 11-hour discussion the jury found Patrick Anthony Russo guilty the court sentenced him to life imprisonment but he never admitted his guilt despite his criminal history Russo will again be eligible for parole he can file his first ition in 2044 by that time he will be a little over 80 years old

Channel: Checkered Sky - True Crime

Views: 72,057

Keywords: true crime, true crime channel, The Heartbreaking Case, investigation, detective, disappearance, girl disappeared, crime investigation, case solved, solved, disappearance of girl solved, detective stories, true crime documentary, documentary, Case, crime, crime documentary, true crime 2023, Diane Holik The

Id: ZHhQRnrL8Lo

Length: 20min 37sec (1237 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 12 2023